Bur­glar stole wal­lets from pen­sioner

Ex­clu­sive

A bur­glar sneaked into the home of a trust­ing pen­sioner in Can­ter­bury and swiped two wal­lets.

By the time the vic­tim had spot­ted the theft, David Burt had used two stolen credit cards and cash from the wal­lets to buy al­co­hol and drugs.

Drug-ad­dict Burt, 47, of Whit­stable Road, Can­ter­bury, who has a string of pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, ad­mit­ted three frauds.

Now a judge at Can­ter­bury Crown Court has jailed him for 32 months after he ad­mit­ted the bur­glary in King Street just min­utes be­fore he was due to stand trial.

Recorder An­thony Clover was told the el­derly vic­tim was hav­ing work done on his prop­erty in June. To make it eas­ier for the work­ers to come and go, he left his front door “on the latch”, the court was told.

But Burt took ad­van­tage of that and got into the prop­erty and stole the wal­lets – and then went to three nearby stores.

The vic­tim dis­cov­ered the thefts and im­me­di­ately called the bank to can­cel the cards – but by then Burt had been into Sains­bury’s in St Dun­stan’s Street and spent £27.50 on bot­tles of brandy.

The court heard that just eight min­utes later he went to the Ex­press store in St Peter’s Street, where he used the card to buy more goods worth £2.95.

He was caught after po­lice re­viewed the shops’ CCTV footage and ar­rested him in St Peter’s Street.

The judge heard that Burt has been con­victed of 69 of­fences since 1986 – 15 of them bur­glar­ies and al­most two-thirds for thefts.